Meet La Speranza

At age nine when her family was living in upstate New York, Yvonne Smith chose to learn to play the viola because of its rich, dark sound, its supporting role in ensembles … and her acute distaste for high notes, which would have been inevitable, had she chosen to play the violin. Her love for the viola grew throughout her childhood years and several cross-country moves, and she eventually grew to tolerate and even embrace high notes. 

Yvonne was first introduced to early music as a teenager when she heard and fell in love with a recording of Corelli’s violin concerti by Philharmonia Baroque. She began seriously pursuing historical performance shortly after completing her modern viola performance degrees from the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University (B.Mus’13, M.Mus’ 15). While at Rice, she studied with James Dunham and Joan DerHovsepian. 

In addition to performing with and directing La Speranza, Yvonne enjoys a full schedule as a performing and teaching artist on both modern and baroque viola. She has appeared as soloist with and as a member of Lyra Baroque (Minneapolis, MN) and American Bach Soloists (San Francisco, CA). She also has a thriving viola studio of private students ranging from age 8 to adult and is a contracted substitute in the Houston Symphony viola section for the 2024-2025 season. Yvonne’s baroque viola was made by Timothy Johnson in 2017 after a viola by Andrea Guarneri, made in 1676. 

Violinist Joanna Becker loves to connect with others through performance and teaching. She is especially dedicated to playing newly-written music in a number of genres and to exploring the historical performance practice of older repertoire. 

Joanna is one of the original members of La Speranza. She is also a core member of the Texas New Music Ensemble, in which she performs chamber works of Texas based composers. She collaborates in studio and on stage with folk rock, neoclassical and ambient artists, and performs regularly with Houston-based period ensembles Mercury and Ars Lyrica. She teaches violin in her private studio.

Originally from the East Coast, Joanna earned her BA in musicology from Yale University and her MM in violin performance from the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. She lives in Houston with her husband and two boys.

La Speranza cellist Fran Koiner grew up in idyllic Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. She holds performance degrees from Ithaca College, summa cum laude, and Rice University, where she studied with Elizabeth Simkin (Ithaca), Desmond Hoebig and Norman Fischer (Rice).

At Bowdoin Summer Music Festival Fran studied with Steven Doane and the late Marc Johnson of the Vermeer Quartet, and she performed in master classes for David Ying and the Ying Quartet. In support of her specialization in Baroque and Classical Era historical performance, Fran attended the American Bach Soloists Academy in San Francisco, working with Kenneth Slowik, Steven Lehning, Debra Nagy, Corey Jamason, and Jeffrey Thomas.

An active musician in Texas, Fran has performed with TUTS, the Houston Ballet Orchestra, Mercury, Ars Lyrica, Bach Society Houston, the Houston Gilbert and Sullivan Society, and the Austin Baroque Orchestra. A seasoned private instructor, Fran has taught at San Jacinto and Lee Colleges and also maintains a small teaching studio in her Houston home, where she lives with her husband and two teenagers.

Fran is sponsored by Larry Eshelman in La Speranza’s 2025-2026 season.

Violinist Maria Lin is from Rockland County, New York, and has degrees from the New England Convservatory and the Eastman School of Music, where she studied with James Buswell and Zvi Zeitlin, respectively.

She has performed at numerous music festivals including Tanglewood, Spoleto, Sarasota, Grand Teton and the International Musician’s Seminar at Prussia Cove.

As a soloist she has performed with the Rockland Symphony, the Hudson Valley Philharmonic, the National Repertory Orchestra, and gave her debut solo recital at Carnegie’s Weill Hall sponsored by the Asian American Foundation for the Arts. She has taught privately and at the Interlochen Music Center.

A freelancer in the Northeast for many years, she moved to Houston in 2000 and has since performed with the Houston Grand Opera, Houston Ballet, Houston Symphony, Harmonium Stellarum, American Baroque Opera Co., Mercury, Bach Society, Ars Lyrica, and La Speranza.   She plays on a violin made by Giovanni Baptista Gabrieli in 1770.